i am thinking of puting a eberspacher diesel heater in our motorhome,could some one tell us how good thay are and do you get fune of the heater.thank

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Hi, we have the Eberspacher water and air heater in our Starburst and we think it is excellent. It is much more effective and efficient than the Truma we had in the previous motorhome. I know there are people on this forum who are not so keen on the Eberspacher, but we are well satisfied.

Another consideration is that we go away for 3/4 months at a time and saving gas in our Gaslow system is quite important, the Eberspacher means that we only use Gas for cooking!

We have never noticed the fumes from the heater exhaust, but I suppose if you have the window open directly above the exhaust then you may be able to smell some of the fumes, we have not.

I am sure someone will comeback to you with an alternative suggestion, so you will have to wait and see!! Good luck with your motorhome.

i am thinking of puting a eberspacher diesel heater in our motorhome,could some one tell us how good thay are and do you get fune of the heater.thank

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Hi we also have a Webasto heating system on our new motorhome. I was really sceptical of its suitability but it is excellent. Very quiet on the inside does sound a little like a small jet engine on start up on the outside. Produces really good heat and the info suggests that it is really cheap to run.:thumb:

The company I used to work for had a fleet of 'Jiffy' vans for delivering hot food, the oven was heated with an Eberspacher .. very efficient and reliable .. however, we had problems with the fresh air intake filter blocking, it was mounted behind the rear wheel and was picking up road dust/dirt .. what a stupid place to mount .. oh:
we overcame this problem by extending the intake pipe to roof level.. the filters rarely ever needed changing afterwards..

Hi we also have a Webasto heating system on our new motorhome. I was really sceptical of its suitability but it is excellent. Very quiet on the inside does sound a little like a small jet engine on start up on the outside. Produces really good heat and the info suggests that it is really cheap to run.:thumb:

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Yes you get some pretty odd looks from people when it first kicks in. They seem to be wondering where the afterburner is and i often think to myself, "permission for take off"!

Another point worth mentioning is that you can use diesel heaters whilst mobile, unlike gas which is illegal to have turned on when the van/mh is on the move.

Our new Panel Van Conversion has one, very happy with it so far, produces heat quickly and soon warms van up. As stated earlier can be used to warm van prior to setting out and can be kept running on the move, cheap to run and only need a 4.5Kg Gas Bottle. We also have the electric element for use on site with electric hook-up. How reliable and what maintenance cost is involved I have yet to find out. A little noisier outside the van but not inside.

We have them for "Night Heaters" in the trucks, and in a truck cab its as warm as toast.!!

Ive just fitted a D2 Airtronic to the front end of the R-V, as being a "Pusher" the coolant has a long run and the cab can be D**mn cold, especially up the pyrenees in winter!!. Not had chance to test it "for real" yet but it pushes heat to the feet on test, so far so good.

Mine came of E-Bay and owes me about £300 altogether. Believed to be out of an old BT service van.

We lived with a Eberspacher heater for 4 years when we where living on a boat.

We found that they were noisy, expensive to repair, and the biggest problem was that when the heater starts up it requires a 18 amp supply to get the diesel to fire up, now if your batteries are not fully charged the voltage will drop, if it drops under 12 volt then the heater will stop the start sequence.

If this happens then you have to start the engine to hold up the voltage, but of course when the cabin/motorhome reaches the set temperature the heater shuts down and you have the same problem all over again.

There are several different versions / configurations of Eberspacher heaters. I have an Eber in my 2006 Autocruise that I've owned for six months. It is a 'compact' version which is only available to trade. It heats both water and air by diesel or electric. On a recent stay away in the freezing cold we ran it 24hr a day on the site electric hook up without using diesel and it just about kept the temperature comfortable if we were wearing woolies. We found that raising the temperature first with diesel and then switching to electric it worked better. We ran it overnight at a reduced room thermostat setting. I would not want one that did not have the electric option for room heating. It is noisy on diesel especially when working hard on initial temperature rise. I have not experienced any service costs etc. yet so cannot comment on that.

We do have an issue with it not firing up when the battery voltage is low but this is partly due to Autocruise not using the correct heavy duty cable from the leisure battery to the Eber as specified by the manufacturer. This causes a large voltage drop and the Eber needs at least 10.5 volts to fire.

I intend to replace the wiring soon and according to others who have had a similar problem, I expect that this will cure it.

Prior to buying this 'van I most certainly would not have chosen a diesel heater, having previously had a gas blown air heater and water boiler but now I have one I can see the advantages over a gas powered one, as well as some disadvantages. I calculated that, assuming a gas powered heater and the Eber use a similar amount of fuel, the Eber will be cheaper to run, even when paying road fuel duty on the diesel compared with the cost of exchangeable Calor gas bottles.

This is all just my opinion so check all these things for yourself before buying!

We lived with a Eberspacher heater for 4 years when we where living on a boat. We found that they were noisy, expensive to repair, and the biggest problem was that when the heater starts up it requires a 18 amp supply to get the diesel to fire up, now if your batteries are not fully charged the voltage will drop, if it drops under 12 volt then the heater will stop the start sequence.

If this happens then you have to start the engine to hold up the voltage, but of course when the cabin/motorhome reaches the set temperature the heater shuts down and you have the same problem all over again.

My advice is don't get one.

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Mine came already fitted in the campervan i bought so basically the heater cost me nothing. The van itself had stood idle for months and both leisure and engine batteries were totally knackered and had to be replaced. But the heater kicked up off what few amps were left in the old battery....there certainly wasn't anything like 18amps!

As for reaching 'set temp'......blimey i've never got that far as they push out so much heat i have to turn mine down long before that!

As for noise. Yes they are on the outside, but nothing more than a little fan motor quietly whirring away on the inside.

Even though we have the gas hot air heating, we got a Eberspacher fitted to our motorhome for our winter trip to Spain. We went to Spain with our 4 month old baby and didnt want to risk the cold (through France especially), the good think about the Eberspacher, you can run it when the vehicle is in motion to keep the back of the motorhome nice and warm (for the baby) whilst driving through sub zero temperatures. Its very efficient, quiet (got the silencer kit fitted).

Even though we have the gas hot air heating, we got a Eberspacher fitted to our motorhome for our winter trip to Spain. We went to Spain with our 4 month old baby and didnt want to risk the cold (through France especially), the good think about the Eberspacher, you can run it when the vehicle is in motion to keep the back of the motorhome nice and warm (for the baby) whilst driving through sub zero temperatures. Its very efficient, quiet (got the silencer kit fitted).
N&K

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Can I ask which model you fitted, by whom and does it blow through the existing ducting?

Originally i asked to have it fitted to the existing ducting but although the ducting size was the same (60mm i think) the fitter explained a lot of heat would be lost through the ducting as it travelled around the M/H and also the existing ducting isnt sufficient to handle the heat from the Eberspacher (the air is hotter than the fan assisted gas heated air), apparently it starts to smell (burnt type smell). So....it was finally fitted in the centre of the motorhome under a seat with two vents, one pointing forwards and one point backwards down the motorhome, we havent used the gas heater since and we didnt even use one bottle of gas for a month in spain, inc daily showers and water heating. There is also a motorhome optional extra (silencer kit)

It is possible to get it to blow through the existing ducting but he said the first metre or so of ducting needs to be replaced with more robust ducting to handle the hot air, after a metre it will have cooled enough to travel down your existing ducting, but he also said the ducting should be disconnected from the gas fire. For this reason I decided to opt for the Eberspacher to be a stand alone installation and not integrated into the existing ducting, leaving both heating systems totally functional.

There is a timer option which we had fitted too, 7 day timer, can set it to come on periodically, which i did last week when it was -8C in the motorhome parked outside the house.